The Line Between Loneliness and Solitude

Meditation Without Borders – Being the Change Podcast

These past couple years, it could be argued that loneliness is like a second epidemic. And with the holidays coming up, feelings of isolation are intensified. But being alone does not necessarily cause loneliness.

In this episode, Isabel and Kristen look at the line between loneliness and solitude from many angles. They look at how stress causes a sense of isolation and how even there can be a temporary phase in our meditation practice where we feel disconnected from people with whom we used to feel aligned. We invite you to listen and learn how to turn from feeling alone to “all One.”

1.15 loneliness and solitude are the same word in spanish (no difference)

1.40 “Solitude is being on your own and loneliness is feeling on your own”. Kristen

1.50 Loneliness while being with others

2.05 “You can be in solitude but not feel alone.” Kristen

3.20 “The higher your state of consciousness the greater capacity you have to feel not alone when you are alone. Your self is no longer bound but the wave of the self, your little individual body but your self goes everywhere, it is everywhere. How this is experiences is it doesn´t feel like you are alone.” Kristen

4.06 “Our practice is a practice of solitude, in the sense that we do it alone. Even if we do it in a group setting or we have a group meditation, its a practice where we go within. And so nobody can go within with us, so we go within and we have our practice of solitude. But it opens the door to connection.” Isabel

4.33 “To experience oneness and connection you have to be able to go inward by yourself and learn to be with yourself.” Kristen

4.40 Cellphone have made this worse- stressed people need distraction

6.06 Loneliness as a meditator – disconnection with the people you used to feel connection with

7.09 “Feeling lonely is when you no longer feel connected.” Isabel

7.30 Swimming analogy – unity points are deeper as a meditator

8.20 Feeling unity with people who you wouldn´t feel unity with

9.22 “It´s not just with other human beings that we connect.” Kristen

9.38 Yogis find reciprocation with nature itself

10.00 Right of passage

10.32 “There is a point (in our practice) where we feel disconnected from people we used to feel connected with just because we don´t share the same values that once upon a time we could´ve shared but once you kind of get through that it´s like the first little openings of growing in consciousness. But once you grow enough in consciousness you´ll see that you can now relate to everyone.” Isabel

12.00 Cosmic Consciousness

13.00 Loneliness and CC blues

15.30 Artists in solitude to create art – moments of solitude create deep connection to create their art

17.00 Compassion to others – what you used to push away from can be a unity point

18.00 “Stress makes us feel incredibly alone. Stress pushes us into the wave of self, into that isolated consciousness. And that´s part of what causes the fear. Fear is a sense o otherness, that things are other. That is how we have fear, that something is other than me and so I´m afraid of it. When our extended self extends to everything nothing is other so nothing makes you afraid.” Kristen

19.20 Loneliness as the root as damage

“If we can feel less alone which requires that othering to hurt someone, if we could feel less alone, which requires us to feel unity with everything else makes you incapable of hurting something.” Kristen

20.10 Level of loneliness is self sabotage

22.10 Dharma - Becoming a point of contact to uplift them

23.07 “Someone being in your event horizon will uplift them, you will become that point of contact, that dharma, you are living in dharma, living in that contact with that field for the benefit of everyone you come in contact with. The consciousness of creation evens itself out. We are able to uplift others and keep the world from feeling lonely.” Kristen

24.00 Finding the lonely pockets

“We are already not alone, it´s a feeling.” Kristen

24.44 Going through tough things alone makes us feel lonely. Connecting through vulnerability

“How does this bad experience help me uplift others?” Isabel

26.00 There is nothing under the sun that we are experiencing on our own

26.37 Memes as relatability points

27.23 Power of comedy to connect to humanity

“Comedians are very vedic. What they do is they observe life, they observe the patterns of life that we do and they tell it in such a way that it makes us not feel alone. That is what is so funny because the very human aspects of our consciousness that´s what they put into play.” Isabel

28.00 Unity through laughter

28.30 We need meditation to feel grounded over and over again

29.00 In meditation things no longer seem to be random

“The more we meditate and experience everything as extended self it feels like just one big thing moving forward as oppose to all these disjointed pieces. So when something happens it doesn´t feel meaningless. Which in a way that meaning that comes with that feeling of oneness keeps you from feeling lonely and that these things are just happening to you.” Kristen

31.31 When something big happens there is a big tranformation coming

33.10 Solitude and loneliness during Covid

32.15 Taking disconection and making it a connection

34.00 Relationships and fullfillment

36.40 The point of relationships

41.00 Being that point of contact

42.00 As a meditator there is no more waiting

“Its not waiting when you´re a meditator because wherever you are you are. There is no waiting for some other experience that you wish you were having, Yo can sit on your own and you´ll be fine. I´m not waiting for this relief fromthis experiencing that I am having now.” Kristen

42.00 People needing to distract themselves

44.00 Time is subjective